Food presses, such as sandwich presses or hamburger presses, use a pair of plates, whereby the sandwich, for example, is placed between a pair of heated plates to warm the bread and its filling. However, sandwich presses rely on a user to insert the sandwich and monitor the time spent warming the sandwich before removing it. As often happens, the user can become distracted and forget to remove the cooked sandwich, which then burns. It is known to provide timing devices on sandwich presses to alert the user that the food item is cooked but these are not always accurate to properly cook the food item, and require setting by the user.
On the other hand, food presses can also inconsistently cook food items, leading to undercooking. Taking for example sandwiches, thick sandwiches in particular are prone to undercooking, where the heat from the plates to the center of the sandwich takes a longer time to transfer than anticipated. To address this problem, the sandwich has to be squashed between the plates to improve heat transfer from the plates to the sandwich. This is undesirable as it inevitably crushes the sandwich, spilling its filling, and can generally affect the palatability of the sandwich.
Furthermore, inconsistent cooking may also cause food poisoning particularly if the sandwich is not freshly prepared and insufficient heat has been applied to kill any bacteria.
It is desirable to provide a cooking apparatus that can accurately and consistently heat or cook a variety of food items.